Thursday, June 02, 2005

AP -- Three suicide car bombings killed 20 people in northern Iraq on Thursday, including a top municipal council leader and a bodyguard of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister, officials said.

At least 12 people were killed in a massive explosion targeting a restaurant in Tuz Khormato, near Kirkuk, where bodyguards of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister, Rowsch Nouri Shaways, were eating.

'I was sitting inside my restaurant when about six cars parked nearby and their passengers came inside and ordered food,' said restaurant owner Ahmed al-Dawoudi. 'Seconds later, I heard a big explosion and the restaurant was turned into twisted wreckage and rubble. Blood and pieces of flesh were everywhere.'

In Kirkuk itself, a suicide car bomber killed four Iraqi bystanders while targetting a convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers carrying civilian contractors. A US soldier also died of non-battle-related wounds the military said. Further south in Baqouba, another suicide bomber killed four people, including Hussein Alwan al-Tamimi, 41, deputy head of Iraq's northeastern Diyala provincial council.

A US Marine was killed when a roadside bomb struck the vehicle he was traveling in Wednesday near Ramadi.